F -14 Tomcat :: essays research papers

F-14 TOMCATWing span 64 feet unswept 38 feet sweptLength 62 feet 7 inchesHeight 16 feetWeight revoke 40,104 pounds Maximum take-off 74,348 poundsSpeed Maximum 1,544 mphCruise 576 mphCeiling More than 56,000 feetPower plant Two Pratt and Whitney TF-30-P412A turbofan engines withafterburners F-14B and F-14D F-110-GE-400 augmented turbofan engineswith afterburner faction twoContractor Grumman AerospaceF-14 Tomcat, sleek, powerful, deadly, and the real star of the movie TopGun. The F-14 Tomcat followed a history of "Cats" in the military. The F-4FWildcat and the F-6F Hellcat that fought in the skies years onward theTomcat ever bit the air. In the late 1960s, the U.S Navy decided to decidedto focus on an aircraft dedicated to pass along defense. Grumman had alreadybegun developing the F-14, and was by all odds headed for a "Cat"designation. The person responsible for this project was Admiral TomConolly, Deputy Chief, Naval Operations for Air. The aircraft was dubbed&q uotToms Cat" long before the official arrive at of "Tomcat" was ever adopted.(novia.net, 1999)Overall, the Navys Grumman F-14 Tomcat is without equal amongtodays Free World fighters. Six long-range AIM-54A Phoenix missiles can beguided against six separate little terror aircraft at long range by the F-14s AWG-9weapons control system. For medium-range combat, Sparrow missiles arecarried Sidewinders and a 20mm are available for dogfighting. In the latterrole, the Tomcats variable-sweep wings give the F-14 a combat maneuveringcapability that could not have been achieved with a "standard" fixedplanform wing. (history.navy, 1999)In full forward-sweep position,the wings provided the lift needed forslow-speed flight, especially needed during attack aircraft carrier landings. In swept-backpositions, the wings blend into the aircraft, giving the F-14 Tomcat adart-like silhouette for high-speed, super-sonic flight (using Pratt & WhitneyTF30-P-412A Turbofans). (novia. net. 1999) By 1972, the first of the F-14 Tomcats off the production line were displace to the US . In October of 1972, two squadrons were formed with theF-14 Tomcat to begin flight operations. (novia.net, 1999) All in all,fourteen aircraft were used for the development program. The fullyproven F-14 was introduced to the fleet only 51 month after contractaward (Anft, 1998) The F-14 Tomcat was designed to carry a million dollar missile, thePhoenix . The AIM-54 Phoenix has a range of over 100 miles and solepurpose was to destroy Soviet bombers. The F-14 Tomcat program camedown to a test at the Naval missile Test Center at Point Mugu, CA inNovember, 1973. The Pentagon wanted an aircraft that could take on sixdifferent targets at once, and on that day in November, the Tomcat